479 BC

Last updated

Millennium: 1st millennium BC
Centuries:
Decades:
Years:
479 BC in various calendars
Gregorian calendar 479 BC
CDLXXVIII BC
Ab urbe condita 275
Ancient Egypt era XXVII dynasty, 47
- Pharaoh Xerxes I of Persia, 7
Ancient Greek era 75th Olympiad, year 2
Assyrian calendar 4272
Balinese saka calendar N/A
Bengali calendar −1071
Berber calendar 472
Buddhist calendar 66
Burmese calendar −1116
Byzantine calendar 5030–5031
Chinese calendar 辛酉(Metal  Rooster)
2218 or 2158
     to 
壬戌年 (Water  Dog)
2219 or 2159
Coptic calendar −762 – −761
Discordian calendar 688
Ethiopian calendar −486 – −485
Hebrew calendar 3282–3283
Hindu calendars
 - Vikram Samvat −422 – −421
 - Shaka Samvat N/A
 - Kali Yuga 2622–2623
Holocene calendar 9522
Iranian calendar 1100 BP – 1099 BP
Islamic calendar 1134 BH – 1133 BH
Javanese calendar N/A
Julian calendar N/A
Korean calendar 1855
Minguo calendar 2390 before ROC
民前2390年
Nanakshahi calendar −1946
Thai solar calendar 64–65
Tibetan calendar 阴金鸡年
(female Iron-Rooster)
−352 or −733 or −1505
     to 
阳水狗年
(male Water-Dog)
−351 or −732 or −1504
The Persian invasion of Greece in 480-479 BC Persian invasion.png
The Persian invasion of Greece in 480–479 BC

Year 479 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vibulanus and Rutilus (or, less frequently, year 275 Ab urbe condita ). The denomination 479 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Contents

Events

By place

Greece

  • The Persian commander Mardonius, now based in Thessaly, wins support from Argus and western Arcadia. He tries to win over Athens but fails.
  • Mardonius attacks Athens once more and the Athenians are forced to retreat, whereupon he razes the city. The Spartans march north to support Athens against the Persians.
  • August 27
    • The Battle of Plataea in Boeotia ends the Persian invasions of Greece as the Persian general Mardonius is routed by the Greeks under Pausanias, nephew of the former Spartan King, Leonidas I. The Athenian contingent is led by the repatriated Aristides. Mardonius is killed in the battle and the Greeks capture enormous amounts of loot. Thebes is captured shortly thereafter and the Theban collaborators executed by Pausanias.
    • Meanwhile at sea, the Persians are defeated by a Greek fleet headed by Leotychidas of Sparta and Xanthippus of Athens in the Battle of Mycale, on the coast of Ionia in Asia Minor.
  • Potidaea is struck by a tsunami.
  • In 479 BC, when Persian soldiers besieged the Greek city of Potidaea, the tide retreated much farther than usual, leaving a convenient invasion route. But this wasn't a stroke of luck. Before they had crossed halfway, the water returned in a wave higher than anyone had ever seen, drowning the attackers. The Potiidaeans believed they had been saved by the wrath of Poseidon. But what really saved them was likely the same phenomenon that has destroyed countless others: a tsunami.

Rome

  • The Roman consul Caeso Fabius proposed an agrarian law to distribute land won in recent wars amongst the plebs, but this was rejected by the senate.
  • Ongoing hostilities between Rome and the Aequi. No major battle is fought.
  • Ongoing hostilities between Rome and Veii. The family of the Fabii requests and is granted sole responsibility for the war, and the Fabii march from Rome, establishing a fortified camp at the Cremera.

Births

Deaths

Related Research Articles

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Plataea

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Pausanias the Regent Regent of Sparta

Pausanias was a Spartan regent and a general who succeeded his father Cleombrotus who, in turn, succeeded king Leonidas I. In 479 BC, as a leader of the Hellenic League's combined land forces, Pausanias won a pivotal victory in the Battle of Plataea ending the Second Persian invasion of Greece. One year after the victories over Persians and Persian allies, Pausanias fell under suspicion of conspiring with the Persian king, Xerxes I to betray Greeks and died in 477 BC in Sparta starved to death by fellow citizens. What is known of his life is largely according to Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Diodorus' Bibliotheca historica and a handful of other classical sources.

Potidaea

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The second Persian invasion of Greece occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece at the Battle of Marathon, which ended Darius I's attempts to subjugate Greece. After Darius's death, his son Xerxes spent several years planning for the second invasion, mustering an enormous army and navy. The Athenians and Spartans led the Greek resistance. About a tenth of the Greek city-states joined the 'Allied' effort; most remained neutral or submitted to Xerxes.

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Masistius

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Achaemenid destruction of Athens

The Achaemenid destruction of Athens was accomplished by the Achaemenid Army of Xerxes I during the Second Persian invasion of Greece, and occurred in two phases over a period of two years, in 480–479 BCE.

References